Day 70: Saturday, July 13

Tenting by the unbelievable Middle Fork of the Feather River (PCT mi 1250.6), walked 27.1 miles today

Woke up at 6:45 to Redbeard leaving, got going myself by 7:30. Don't really remember what happened in the morning, other than that I was alone and the weather was cool and forgiving. Around 11am, after 10ish miles, got to Quincy-LaPorte Road, which Yogi assures is has very little traffic. That was true, but the one truck that did come by offered as much cold juice and yogurt as we could carry to me and the two other hikers, Robin Hood and Hummingbird, who were sitting there on our break. Ate a Chobani mango cup and filled up a liter of bright pink Guava nectar, which made the next five miles to water so much easier.

The terrain today was not as remarkable as yesterday's--just a lot of low brushy hills with literally a hundred or more downed logs to scramble over or around--which is maybe why I'm having trouble piecing together the events which led to me covering 26+ miles in 12 hours (maybe there was an alien abduction somewhere in there). At 16 miles I had to go what felt like an eternity (0.3 miles) off-trail to draw water from a spring, then the next 10 miles flew by and suddenly the trail was dropping hard into a canyon with this gorgeous river, the Feather, at the bottom of it. One of the best parts about the PCT is when I arrive at some stunningly beautiful place that, despite all my hours of pre-trip research and on-trail grapevining, I've never heard of or been warned about. This is such a place, a complete surprise. Went in for a full-body dunk, but not really a swim, and got cleaned up before setting up camp. Ate dinner with Robin Hood, a pretty cool dude from Bismarck, NoDak (he doesn't know Randy). Hummingbird and Gone Slow showed up later. Going to bed feeling very clean compared to the usual, knowing that I'll get dirty again climbing for 10 miles tomorrow morning, but that there are burgers and sodas at the top at Bucks Lake.